Existentialism Essay Research Paper Websters Collegiate Dictionary

Existentialism Essay, Research Paper

Webster.s Collegiate Dictionary defines existentialism as .a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for his acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad. (407). Without question existentialism is extremely complicated and almost incomprehensible. However Katharena Eiermann defines existentialism in a more understandable manner. She says that existentialism has .one major theme: a stress of individual existence and, consequently, on subjectivity, individual freedom, and choice. (1).

In The Tell-Tale Heart written by Edgar Allan Poe the .plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for his acts of free will. become dreadfully clear. Poe manifests these existential philosophies in the clear illustration of the conscience, anguish, and ultimate absurdity of the narrator.

.True! .nervous.very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad. The disease has sharpened my senses.not destroyed.not dulled them.. Poe opens the story with these chilling words of the narrator who seems rational and acute of all his senses.his conscience, above all else, highly tuned. .How, then, am I mad.. says the narrator ..observe how healthily.how calmly I can tell you the whole story.. It is wildly evident by the chilling introduction that our narrator, although very in tune with his senses, is trying to convince himself of his sanity. But, alas .From the very first sentence his madness is apparent through his desperate insistence upon his sanity. (Lanzen-Harris, 310). But to the madman sanity is relative; after all, sanity is a conscious state of mind .whereas insanity is, to all intents and purposes, a condition of the unconsciousness. (Lanzen-Harris, 310). The narrator continues to explain his mind and method, but still maintaining his sanity. .It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived it haunted me day and night.. His object, .there was none.. His passion, .there was none.. He says that is was the eye of the old man for whom he cared..yes, it was this.. The eye resembled that of a vulture..a pale blue eye, with a film over it.. Whenever the eye came upon him, his .blood ran cold.. So he says, .I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever.. It wasn.t the man that he wanted to kill. But the eye that haunted him. Fyodor Dostoyevsky once said .nothing is more seductive for a man than his freedom of conscience. But nothing is a greater cause of suffering. (Eiermann). The narrator.s unwillingness to embrace his true conscience and insanity will soon find Dostoyevsky.s words prophetic.

In addition to the clear illustration of our narrator.s conscience, Poe shows us that the narrator.s anguish is also a key factor in the story as well as the existential realm. Kierkegaard once said, .it is the claim that anguish is the underlying, allpervasive, universal condition of human existence. (Eiermann). Each evening the narrator would put his head through the doorway of the old mans bedroom to see if he could gaze upon the eye: .to think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts.. He chuckles at the thought, but soon recalls the night that the old man woke when he opened the door:

I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in the bed, crying out..Who.s there.. I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening.just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the deathwatches in the wall. Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief.oh, no! .It was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him.

The anguish of the old man as well as that of the narrator keeps the storyteller focused on the brutal task at hand. He knows well the fear and anguish the old man must feel. The story-teller believes that killing the old man will free himself of the evil eye that invades his thoughts; but in actuality, the freedom he seeks will only .complete his torture. (Lanzen-Harris, 329). Frank Kafka once said .My fear is my substance, and probably the best part of me,. and it is within this realm of thought that we see the extinguishing of a life take place in The Tell-Tale Heart (Eiermann).

In the conclusion of the story, we see the demise of the narrator and the ultimate absurdity that is its foundation. William J. Hackman defines absurdity to be .the belief that there is something not reasonable, and people can not expect reason in anything.(1). Once the old man.s life had been extinguished, the narrator went to work in order to hide his crime. Soon after